Here is a picture of one of my tunnel portals in place and one of the rock castings from Bragdon ent.  This will be the only place where I used the entire casting in one piece, I will break different pieces off and reassemble them for the other rock faces.

Here is more of the rock casting used in pieces to create one side of the canyon.  The bottom of the river is in place and partially painted. (note to self – should have used flex paste to fill holes before installing gravel).

Here is a view higher up the canyon, showing where I have started to use Woodland Scenics water effects to create the rapids and small falls.

A final view shows the beginnings of my trestle, which I am custom making each one at my desk before installing it on the layout.

Here is a picture of the tree making machine I have been using for a little while.  While a very simple machine it has the ability to create very realistic model trees with moderate effort and little cost.

Here is a picture of the armatures ready for painting:

The next step will be hanging them upside down and painting brown.  After that I will use hairspray and sprinkle on ground foam.

I have spent the last couple of days working on trees.  I borrowed a tree making machine and have started making armatures for evergreen type trees.  The machine helps in making the bottle brush type of trees.  It helps by twisting a pair of wires around fibers cut from hemp rope.  After twisting the wire the armatures get cut into tree shapes.  So far I have only rough cut one tree, but the results are stunning even before painting and flocking.  I intend to purchase one of these machines as soon as I can.  Until then I will twist as many as I can.  Half will be for my home layout, the Get Out and Push railroad, and the other half will be for the San Leandro Historical Railway Society.

I went down to the San Leandro Historical Railway Society last night for our normal Tuesday open hours.  I took the storage box I spent the last couple of days down with me.  Luckily, it fit in a decent location under the layout.  I have only three drawers in so far, but it looks like it will contain my entire collection with room to spare.

I also took the second building for the Del Monte plant for the San Leandro portion of the layout.  I had added roof details and completed some of the final details over the last couple of days.  The I still need to add the interior office and warehouse details and lighting.

I spent the rest of the evening test running my new Athearn Genesis GP-9.  It pulled a decent mixed freight train through the layout, but eventually skidded out when attempting to go up the helix at a 2% grade and a fairly sharp corner.  Overall I am very pleased with the operation and sound of this model.

I need to purchase the material to complete the shelves for my storage box.

Today I spent some time terra-forming, fancy speak for making more plaster rocks using the various molds I have accumulated.  I am beginning to realize how many pieces it will take to complete this section of the layout, and it is quite a lot.  My preference is to model the scenery of the Pacific Northwest down into Northern California.  Along the coast it can be quite steep.  I am also creating a waterfall scene that winds down the mountain, so will need even more rock.  So far I have several rubber molds from Woodland Scenics, which work pretty well, and a silicone mold from Bragdon.  The silicone mold creates incredible detail, which on the other hand makes it a much more delicate job to remove the casting from the mold.  I think that I have only created one complete cast using the mold.  For all of the rest I poured thinner pieces which I broke to fit the scene.  This technique works pretty well to allow you to re-use a rock mold many times over.

I found out the hard way that it is extremely important to seal the area completely when using the Woodland Scenics realistic water.  It found many small holes and drained out after a period of time.  I still haven’t figured out how I will seal the pond areas before filling them.  I am thinking that I can use the Woodland Scenics water effects as a sealing coat before adding more realistic water.  I will post the results when I do figure it out.